Seven Dollars

The port of Luanbajo

This evening something remarkable happened.

Tadashi and I went to the night market for dinner. No, that's not the remarkable part--you'll have to wait for that. In Luanbajo, the night market is a bunch of food stalls set up along the waterfront promenade. We found a stall that looked good, sat down, and ordered dinner (mie goreng and goreng, fried noodles and fried chicken). The stall didn't serve beer, so I went to go buy some. Although it's totally legit to BYOB, finding the B turned out to be a little more difficult the it sounds. 

There were a number of "convenience stores" open within a block from where we were eating, but none of them sold Bintang(and if they don't sell Bintang, they don't sell any other booze either).  I had to backtrack and go the other direction before finally finding a bigger grocery store that had it. (Score!)

I grabbed a few beers (one for dinner, the rest for another time) and went to the cashier.

There was a woman being rung up in front of me. She was buying packages of children's notebooks for them to take notes in at school. Her four children were with her--two boys and two girls--ranging in ages from about five to nine years old. The new school year just started here in Indonesia, and it looked like she was buying about a semester's worth of notebooks for each child.

The cashier rung the woman up and told her to total.  I saw the woman look down at her hand and rub her money together.  She didn't pay, she just scooted down a little further, to make room for me.

I wasn't really laying attention until then, but it was pretty obvious to me that she didn't have enough money to pay for the notebooks. Its funny how not having enough money is universally understood.

As the cashier was ringing up my beer, I asked her to ring up the woman's notebooks as well. The cashier told me my total, but it didn't include the notebooks.  I tried to explain again, but the cashier spoke no English, and I only know a few words in Indonesian, none if which are, "I would like to buy these notebooks for this woman, please."

Cue pantomime sketch.

First, I tried to tell the woman that I will pay, but she pantomimed, "No, they're mine," thinking that I wanted to take them for myself. I then pantomimed, "I pay, you take".

I continued to explain that I was a teacher, and would like to buy these for her.  Unfortunately, I didn't remember the word for "teacher" and nobody around spoke English (it's guru, with a rolling "r").  It took about three minutes, but the woman and the cashier eventually understood what I was trying to do, and the notebooks were added to my bill.

The woman thanked me profusely, "Terima kasih", and said a bunch of other things that I didn't understand. What I did get was that she was clearly greatful and touched. I just kept saying, "Sama sama", you're welcome. I kept telling her that I'm a teacher, and I gave her a hug (a couple, actually) and gave all her kids high fives, which are universally accepted as awesome. The woman was so greatful that I wanted to give her something to remember me by, so I gave her the only thing I had: a No Lunch business cards. I told her my name, and she kept repeating "teacher", so I hope she'll find someone that can translate that word for her.

I was greatful to have been at that store at that moment to be able to help that family. 

But it gets better....

After giving the woman one last hug and the eldest daughter one last high five, I left the store to get back Tadashi. I was gone a while, and Tadashi was starting to get a bit worried. I explained the hunt for beer, and the sweet family I had just met.  

Our food arrived just a few minutes later, and a few minutes after that, the woman arrived with her eldest son in tow. She had come to find me!

I recognized the woman immediately, and introduced her to Tadashi. Luckily, the cook/owner of the food stall came over to help translate. For a split second, it sounded like the woman was asking for more financial help, but that was just me confusing an Indonesian word with an English one.

It turned out that the woman had sought me out to say thank you once more. She asked where we were staying, so Tadashi gave her the business card of our villa. Our translator wasn't the greatest, but I'm pretty sure that the woman was trying to invite us to her house. I have my fingers crossed that she'll turn up tomorrow.

This evening was yet another reminder of how much of an impact anyone can make with just a few dollars.  Our dinner was 54,000 Rupia and my four beers cost 94,000. The semester's supply of notebooks? They cost 82,500 Rupia. Seven dollars. 

Seven dollars.... It was worth every penny.